Sky Captain & the World of Tomorrow is like a toy box that's been toppled over, its contents spilled out across the screen. There are giant robots and rocket ships, zeppelins and fighter planes, jetpacks and submarines. The villain is an evil scientist; his aim, of course, is world destruction. And out to stop him? A dashing hero and his nervy dame--both enabled, handily, by a crafty sidekick with a very big brain.

In other words, Kerry Conran's first film is a goulash of nearly every classic sci-fi and adventure image his memory could provide him. This isn't an homage, it's a full-on immersion. The Hindenburg III docks atop the Empire State Building; Shangri-La is discovered; hero and heroine scramble across a jungle canyon by way of a fallen tree. Each of these spectacles--and they're just some of the many found in the film--could easily find a home in an old serial, or on the cover of a pulpy five-cent paperback. It is to Conran's credit, though, that he refrains from lampooning his inspirations. Sky Captain has nothing but respect and admiration for its sources, and the result is shockingly, and refreshingly, wink-free.

Gwyneth Paltrow is Polly Perkins, intrepid reporter for the New York Chronicle, and the type of gal who will calmly tear the seam in her skirt in order to make a quick getaway. As 1939 is grinding to a close, Polly is hot on the heels of a big story: Scientists are vanishing around the globe, and there are rumors that a reclusive genius named Dr. Totenkopf is behind it. Just what the doctor is concocting remains a mystery, though clues are soon provided when, early on in the film, giant robots descend upon New York and quickly set about creating construction and masonry jobs around the city. Their targets are large generators buried beneath the city streets--generators large enough to power a rocket, say, or a Doomsday Device. Called in to stop their plundering is Captain Joe Sullivan (Jude Law), also known as Sky Captain, a mercenary pilot who swoops onto the scene in the coolest of all airplanes, the P-40 Warhawk.

As heroes go, Sky Captain is drawn straight from the playbook: He's suave, impossibly handsome, and rarely breaks a sweat, no matter what danger gets tossed in his way. He's also, predictably, Polly's former flame, and their conversations are infused with a familiar playful bickering. His Girl Friday it ain't, but Paltrow and Law are both game, and some of Sky Captain's best moments revolve around their speedy banter. In the past, Paltrow has always bugged the hell out of me, but here she absolutely nails her role, delivering a version of Hildy Johnson that succeeds where Jennifer Jason Leigh's overbearing spin in The Hudsucker Proxy failed. And by pairing her with Jude Law, Conran has stumbled across something inspired, for not only are they a pretty couple--and they're indeed very, very pretty--but they play off one another perfectly, their verbal sparring carrying them, and us, along as they set out in search of Dr. Totenkopf and save the world.

That search takes them from New York to a lost prehistoric jungle, with stops at the Himalayas and Shangri-La along the way--all of which is fertile ground for Conran's extensive imagination, especially since everything we see, from the sets to most of the props, is completely fabricated. There's no denying that Sky Captain is one of the most visually beautiful and inventive films you'll ever see, which makes the fact that it was shot entirely against blue screens completely remarkable. Massive digital trickery has long been something I've hated--see Star Wars, Spider-Man, et al. --but here, in a film that relies on CGI more than any has before, the integration between mortals and gigabytes is outright stunning. This is perhaps the most expensive experimental film ever (think of a cheerful Lars von Trier's Zentropa, or a Guy Maddin film with a ridiculous budget), and as such it's fairly shocking that it exists at all. Studios are not ones to gamble, after all, especially on first-time filmmakers with cockamamie schemes about robots and fighter planes, but Conran has managed to make something in Sky Captain that both harks back and leaps forward at the same time, and it is without a doubt, on a purely technical level, one of the bravest major studio pictures ever released.

As visually impressive as Sky Captain is, however, the meat of the film--its story and characters--is almost embarrassingly paper-thin, a fact that may prove to be a crushing blow for some viewers, especially those who don't hold a patch of real estate in their hearts for Max Fleischer's The Adventures of Superman. This lack of depth may be fitting given the film's aims (just how deep was Buck Rogers anyway?), but a consequence is that the entire experience may all but evaporate moments after you've watched it. Every character fails to rise above a sketch, and in the end Sky Captain itself is little more than a lark--an honest throwback, with all the baggage attached--that is best approached as a fleeting experience. To go into it otherwise will surely lead to disappointment.

For my part, I chose to embrace the film for exactly what it is: a visit to a time of simpler movies, created by a director who honestly adores the many genres his film prances through. Sky Captain & the World of Tomorrow is pure joy, and as you watch it you can either scoff at it or dive right in, intent on nothing more than a good time. The latter, obviously, is much more fun.

brad@thestranger.com